Three Resume Tips from Our Expert Recruiters

posted by Jessica_Henry | March 6, 2019March 6, 2019

Here at Swoon, our recruiters see hundreds of resumes a day
and are aware of what makes a resume stand out to hiring managers. While each
company and position are unique, these three resume tips are relevant for any role
in any industry.

The Simple Things Matter

It is important to have a clean,
crisply designed resume that is easy to skim through. You can make your resume
easy to read by choosing a simple, standard font. You may stand out if you
choose a unique font, but not in a good way. If someone cannot easily find the
keywords they are looking for, your resume will be dismissed.

You also want to remain consistent in your layout. If you are putting a range of dates on your resume and you spell out the months on one position, do not change this and use abbreviated months in a different position. The same thing goes with bolding and italicising If you bold one job title, bold them all.

Grammar and spelling errors can ruin
your chances of getting hired from the start. In most cases, your resume is
your only chance at a first impression. Make sure you have triple-checked your
resume for mistakes. There are online services such as Grammarly that help
explain why certain things are incorrect on your document and what you should
do to fix them. Also, it never hurts to have another set of human eyes review
your page for anything you overlooked.

PRO TIP: It is a myth that resumes must be only one page in length. If you have a large amount of experience to share, it is okay to continue onto more pages, but remember, nobody wants to read a nine-page resume either.

Keywords

It may seem obvious if you are a designer that you know how to use the Adobe Creative Suite. However, no skill should be left out of a resume, especially if it is a program or certification. Many times, hiring managers will do a search function on resumes, typing in keywords to be sure the resume has them listed. Even if you are a great candidate, you may be overlooked if you are not focused on including these common industry keywords. If you are experienced in Adobe, add the specifics. Do you know Adobe Photoshop, or are you only familiar with Adobe Illustrator? The more specific you can be in these cases, the better.

Tailoring your resume to each individual job description is another great tip. Look for keywords in the job description that you have experience with. Then, be sure to format your resume to include these words. A great perk when working with our team at Swoon, is that we do the tailoring for you. We will make sure that your resume is customized for each role we submit you to. As a bonus, you will get a leg-up on the competition, because we know what the individual hiring managers are looking for in each candidate’s profile.

Quantify Your Successes

Although it will take some extra work, quantifying your
efforts is a key tip to getting your resume noticed. Instead of including a
bullet point that says:

Created and implemented a social media plan that
grew the company following on all platforms

Say:

Created and implemented a social media plan that grew the company’s Instagram following by 500 followers, Facebook likes by 40% and Twitter followers by 95

Including these numbers shows that you can quantify your
work and gives a more accurate story of your success. Be mindful not to include
numbers that are insignificant, or do not add value to a statement. You want to
highlight your biggest successes in each of your roles, and then mention the day
to day functions that can be transferred to the work you would do in the new
role you are applying for.

If you are ready to start looking for a job, or simply want
to update your current resume, these tips are sure to get you headed in the
right direction. As always, we are here to help, so reach out with any
questions or apply for one of our open roles today!

Written by: Jessica Henry

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Swoon is an award-winning staffing agency with an innovative method to recruitment that has earned us a proven track record of placing the best and brightest talent with temporary and direct-hire opportunities at Fortune 1000 companies nationwide.
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